Intellectual Property Law

Brian Roberts: Clearwire is Unprecedented Opportunity

By Cynthia Brumfield

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts shed more light this morning on why Comcast invested $1.5 billion in the new Sprint-Clearwire WiMax venture, saying that he was dazzled by a 50-Mph trial run of Clearwire's WiMax service that he and fellow investors took before they plunked their money down. Speaking at a Sanford Bernstein conference (webcast) Roberts said "we went on some test drives that were very exciting and three-way video conference calls were happening and it was astonishing...we were able to watch live video at 50 miles per hour."

The new venture, which will be called Clearwire, "is an unprecedented opportunity," Roberts said, adding that "a lot of smart people are convinced that this will work."

Not only is the technology impressive, but the structure of the deal is also very appealing to Comcast. Comcast gets a "founder's deal" that gives the operator a wholesale relationship with Clearwire. Comcast will not be actively involved in running the show, deferring, instead, to Clearwire's management team. "One thing I will say is that we are experts at joint ventures," Roberts said. "We can safely say that what works best is not have management by committee."

The fact that Comcast and the other cable partners (Time Warner and Brighthouse Networks) will have a roaming deal with Sprint for telephony combined with the participation of Google sealed the deal. "Having Google there and the innovation capabilities of Google...and a roaming deal out of the box, there was no other opportunity that was quite as elegant."

Full post as published by IP Democracy on May 29, 2008 (boomark / email).